Island Mama

We don’t have good trees for easy treehouse building — they’re all pines and firs, straight and tall. But last year, we had some trees taken down and we had the stumps left at about 4 feet tall. For no reason at the time, except that we might want them.

Two of them were conveniently close together and close to the kids’ sandpit and the trees where we’re going to hang swings once we get a crossbar up. After looking at them for a few months, and finding one good solid pallet left over from building the woodshed, I had a plan. The first time Eric got out his chainsaw this year, I had him level them off.

And then I built a treehouse. Except, because it’s not on an actual tree, but on stumps, it has now become known as The StumpHouse. Because my children are literalists.

The posts supporting the other corners are from a fence that used to surround the front patio, and which my parents tore out last fall during a visit.

The siding is made of the outside edges of milled trees which we got free from a friend who had had a bunch of trees cleared and milled on her property about a year ago.

The ladder is made from more parts of that fence from the front patio.

It’s not huge, and it’s not quite finished, but I think the boys will have fun with it for a while. It’s probably big enough for 3 or 4 kids.

So now it just needs a roof! Having made the entire thing from stuff we had on hand (the only thing I bought was more screws), I don’t want to pay for roofing. We’ll be on the lookout for scraps of something that we can recycle.

Last Sunday we went to Seattle for a Flickr meetup. The boys, of course, brought their cameras too. We lost the crowd pretty quickly, but spent a while hanging out on the bridge Eric designed back in his engineering days, which is conveniently located over the train tracks.

Boys love train tracks.

Timothy checking out his photo of the train tracks:

Ben showing me his picture of the train tracks:

Boys comparing photos of train tracks?:

ALL the boys taking pictures of the train tracks:

And long after the photography became boring, one little boy was patiently waiting to actually see the train leave:

(It had been sitting in the station for probably an hour, with people coming and going, and he did finally get to see it go.)

It’s January, yes. It’s winter, yes.

But it’s mild, and it feels like so much spring, and we all needed to spend some time outside. We worked hard this morning, gathering branches and transporting them (in the truck, the boys love that part!) to the other end of the yard. I even managed to resist the urge to weed the floor of the little forest (the creeping blackberries, they take over!).

After lunch, we burned.

And the boys painted rocks. It keeps them out of the fire, you know.

Luckily we have an almost endless supply of them, because they can both paint a lot.

Some of Timothy’s works of art:

And some of Ben’s:

The rocks will be strewn about the little forest, making paths or hiding in bushes. Maybe I will have to weed after all.

We even got a little garden prep done. Timothy helped me weed and turn over last year’s garlic bed in preparation for planting out the strawberry runners.

Today seemed like the perfect day for a walk on the beach — mild, gray, but not raining; tide on its way out.

Perfect time to explore some of the amazing driftwood structures people build here.

This one was shaped like an igloo, complete with entrance tunnel.

The kids could fit inside, but we couldn’t. Once they crawled through the entrance, they could even stand up — it was actually quite spacious. I could stick the camera through a gap in the wall though.

And then there was climbing…

And digging in the sand…

And finally, the construction of a crane using found materials…

Some of the driftwood is really amazing to look at up close….

A week ago, when it was hot, we decided to sleep in tents at the far end of our yard. Seems a little crazy, so close but so far from the comfort of our normal beds.

It was fun, though. I was in the big tent with Timothy, and opted not to put the rainfly on to start with, because it was such a beautiful clear starry night and I wanted to look up through the netting at the sky. Which was great and beautiful til I was woken at 5am by the rain coming in and we had to leap up and put the rainfly on in a hurry!

Eric and Ben were in the smaller green tent (Eric’s from his childhood). Don’t they look all cozy in there?

Still soundly sleeping, long after Timothy had dragged me up and out.

The boys really seemed to have fun. I think this is something we’ll have to do more of!

I’ve been working on creating a sandbox for the boys for the last few weeks. Digging, by hand, an 8′ x 8′ pit, one foot deep.

I worked on it a little bit at a time, a day here, a day there. With helpers, of course. Made a nice big hole in the ground.

Then we built a low wooden frame for it. Corner posts over which we can loop some sort of netting to prevent the cat from getting in.

And THEN!! Finally!! Yesterday, we were ready for sand.

We had a dump truck! In our driveway!

TRUCK!

Spectators watch the dump truck approach the forest.

The dump truck managed to get through our half-acre woods, between garden beds and raspberries, and down the yard to where the hole was ready and waiting.

And then there was 4 cubic yards of sand. Just like that.

The truck hadn’t even turned to leave before there was a boy on top of that mountain of sand.

And many hours worth of fun followed.

First, we made a cross with two posts. We put the shirt on the cross post first, then tied the two pieces together. (That’s Tim wearing the scarecrow’s hat, which is really actually a wicker plant pot holder thing, on the other side of the straw bale.)

We stuffed the arms with straw.

We made the head out of a pillowcase stuffed with straw and tied it around the neck. Then we stuffed the body with straw.

We added his overalls and stuffed his legs, drew his face and attached his hat.

Then we lay down on top of him and gave him a good talking to about his duties. Well, one of us did.

And ta-da!! We have a scarecrow!

He’s been on duty for a couple of weeks now, and I think he works. He works for me, at least. Every time I catch a glimpse of him from the far end of the garden, I have to look twice because I think “Hey, who’s that in my yard?”

This is Timothy inside the bean teepee I constructed from branches of an alder tree we cut down. The beans are really starting to come up now, finally, after a few very hot days. In a month or two, this whole thing should be covered in growth and provide quite the kids’ hideout.

The peas are already taller than him, he looks like he’s lost in the jungle when he tries to walk between them and the pototoes.

They’re just about ready to start harvesting, the snap variety at least. The shelling ones need to get a little bigger.

I finally figured out a way to make a swing using two of our trees and some rope. The hammocks are holding up well that way, so I sort of started looping and tying and with no real plan, wound up with a rope swing. It needed a seat so I stole a log from the firewood pile….

And hey, it seems to be working well enough!

Now if he could just learn to swing himself without needing pushed…

The excitement of watching out the window: “Plane! Plane!”

This was on our recent trip to Iowa, which has taken me a while to catch up and recover from. Six hours after these photos were taken, all four of us were throwing up in the first hotel we could find an hour into our planned four hour drive. We recovered, gradually, over the course of the week.

We’ve been back for over two weeks, but between the sickness of the trip and lingering blahs, and the must-plant-vegetable-seeds vibe going on since we got back, I’ve just not been on the computer much. There’ll be some more photos from the trip interspersed with more current stuff over the next week or two, I hope.